


look at this mess that you've made of my heart (i wish you would fix it)

by ArgentLives



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, F/M, Forgiveness, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Injured Barry, Iris Finds Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 05:02:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3475439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentLives/pseuds/ArgentLives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She spends the better half of two weeks trying to convince herself that she hates him, that she's never going to forgive him, that she doesn't ever want to see him again. In the end, she's forced to face the fact that she's just not as convincing a liar as Barry. She does, however, hate herself for missing him. And even then, not nearly as much as she hates herself for still loving him.</p><p>(Iris finds out Barry is The Flash in pretty much the worst way that she can.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	look at this mess that you've made of my heart (i wish you would fix it)

**Author's Note:**

> “Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.” ― Dorothy Allison
> 
> I really wanted to write something exploring Iris's thoughts and feelings about things, and I wanted to make how she finds out as angsty as possible, because she has to find out sooner or later. Please note that I started writing this a while ago, which is why Iris is still living with her dad and isn't moved in with Eddie and Barry is still in his apartment. Also, I didn't include Wells, but that's mostly just because I didn't really want to....anyway, enjoy!

Every Sunday night is movie night. Barry and Iris movie night, to be exact, something they’ve been doing since they were eleven and Iris would walk downstairs in the middle of the night to find Barry sitting up on the couch because he couldn’t fall asleep, because he was _afraid_ to fall sleep, and of the nightmares that it would bring.

She would sit with him, try to find things to distract him, and pretty soon the best distraction became movies. They’d sit up together, leaning into each other as Iris would try to offer him whatever comfort she could, with their eyes glued to the TV until they finally drifted off to sleep—Barry first, Iris always made sure of that. Joe would find them like that in the morning, snuggled up together on the couch.

Long after Barry’s nightmares stopped coming, they’d still creep downstairs in the middle of the night to curl up and marathon whatever their hearts desired—predictably, Barry always insisted on science fiction, Iris on romantic comedies (Iris’s pick usually won, because Barry often didn’t have the heart to say no to her, and although he wouldn’t admit it outright, he never really minded the chick flicks or the romantic comedies— liked them, even).

And when Joe finally put his foot down, said it couldn’t be a nearly-daily thing anymore when they had to be up and ready for school in the mornings, they made it a weekly thing instead.

Iris can’t remember why exactly they picked Sunday—maybe because it was the start of a new week, maybe because it was the end of a long one, maybe because Sunday was the day that stupid Bobby Turner stood her up when he was supposed to be taking her out on a date, and Barry was there for her right away, of course he was, with her favorite ice-cream at the ready and her favorite movie already playing on the TV as she curled up at his side and cried into his shoulder — but Sunday stuck, and it became one of their many little customs.

They jokingly dubbed it yet another Barry-and-Iris tradition, because growing up together they kind of had a lot of those.

Still, it had always been Iris’s favorite.

Even in college, they would try to coordinate it, skype each other when they weren’t too bogged down with work, switching off who got to pick the movie from week to week and starting it at the same time so that it was almost like they were there watching it together, even when they weren’t, even when they couldn’t. Sometimes it was what helped Barry get through a particularly brutal week of lab exams and practicals, or all that kept Iris sane after writing paper after paper.

Unless one of them had a valid excuse, they never missed a week. Iris doesn’t like to count the nine months Barry was in a coma, all the Sundays she spent sitting at his bedside in S.T.A.R. Labs, watching movies on her laptop, willing him to wake up, to come back to her, to open his eyes and watch along with her. In those nine months, she had picked a science fiction movie every time, just for him. Just in case.

But it’s been months now since Barry’s been awake, and today is Sunday, and he’s failed to mention that he would be busy or give her at least a semi-believable excuse in advance. He’s been coming up with a lot of those lately, and Iris is starting to get suspicious as to what’s got him so busy all the time that he keeps cancelling their plans.

She tries to ignore the strange sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach at the sudden thought that maybe Barry is seeing someone, maybe _that’s_ why he’s so often busy at night. She tries to write it off as annoyance at the fact that if that was the case, he’d be keeping it a secret from her when they’ve always promised that they’d tell each other everything. There are no secrets when it comes to the two of them—or at least, there didn’t used to be.

And yet her stomach is still twisting in knots, because she can pretend that that’s the reason all she wants— but no. _That’s. Not. It._

Ever since Barry’s Christmas confession, she’s really not ready to think about what that might mean. Especially when they’re finally starting to get back on track after weeks of awkward silences and figuring out how to settle back into the special, easy rhythm they’d always shared, after they’d finally come to the conclusion that things would be okay, that they could be normal again, that maybe things were a little different and maybe things wouldn’t ever be quite be the same but no matter what, they were still best friends.

After all, she couldn’t lose him again.

But this…this is concerning. Because no matter how much she tries to ignore it, no matter how much she tries to pretend that she’s not always hyper-aware of Barry’s presence whenever he’s near nowadays, and that her eyes don’t follow his every move, and that his hugs don’t leave her wanting something more, and that his touch doesn’t make her skin tingle with something she hasn’t yet placed, it’s there.

Iris shakes her head and tries to shake the feeling along with it, wipe her mind of the thoughts that she knows can only spell trouble—or at least a lot of unnecessary complications. It’s not quite that easy. And if she’s being honest with herself, it’s not just because all of the problems that it could cause if she were to explore those feelings and go down that strange and unfamiliar path of pent-up possibilities that she doesn’t want to think about it. It’s because she’s afraid. Terrified of even the concept of so much change.

She wills herself to focus on the present, because it’s not going to do her any good to dwell on all that right now. Regardless, they had planned to watch this Sunday night’s movie at Barry’s apartment— but Iris is here, waiting outside the door and growing increasingly impatient, and Barry is not.

After fifteen minutes of standing outside, waiting in vain for him to open the door, she lets herself in with the extra key he had given to her and her father when he first bought the place. She’s half expecting him to leap up out of bed, to have been inside sleeping the whole time and not have heard her knocking— but he doesn’t.

The place is a mess, even more so than usual, and she marvels at the sheer amount of take-out boxes, snack wrappers, and empty microwaveable meal containers scattered all over the place, wondering yet again how on earth Barry hasn’t even managed to put on an ounce of weight in the past few months.

In fact, now that she thinks about it, he actually looks _thinner_ lately—sure, he’s put on some muscle, but his face is definitely more drawn than she remembers it being before…before the accident.

It’s been almost an hour now, and that’s late even for Barry. She’s tried calling him at least five times, left five angry voicemails with steadily increasing irritation, and he _still_ hasn’t called back.

She wracks her brain as to where he could possibly be—not with her dad, because she knows that he’s at home, not at work, because she already called Eddie to check, and certainly not with her, although that’s where he should be.

There’s only really two other people that she knows Barry generally spends his free time with: Caitlin and Cisco, from S.T.A.R. Labs, who recently he’s been spending a lot of time doing “science stuff” with—or so he says.

She decides it’s worth a shot to try to contact them, to see if Barry is with them, because now her irritation is quickly draining and giving way to worry, and she’d much rather be annoyed at her friend for standing her up than have him be hurt or in trouble or—or missing.

She has Caitlin and Cisco and even Dr. Well’s phone numbers—had demanded that they give them to her from the moment they took Barry to S.T.A.R. Labs when the hospital kept failing to keep him stable—but for some reason she doesn’t call.

It’d probably be the more polite thing to do, rather than just barging in unannounced, but she’s got this weird gut feeling that she’s right about this, that she’ll find Barry there, and she doesn’t want to give him time to come up with some lame new excuse. She wants to catch him there and give him a little piece of her mind for standing her up again.

She ignores the little voice in her head that’s telling her that that’s not the whole truth either, that now she’s feeling really worried and that wherever Barry is she needs to be able to see him, to touch him, to make sure he’s really safe, because something just doesn’t feel right.

It’s just as she’s got her handle on the door, just as she’s about leave, when something catches her eye.

She stoops low to pick it up, and finds that it must be her lucky day—it’s a lanyard, a guest lanyard with Barry’s name and photo on it for S.T.A.R. Labs, one that will likely grant her admission into the place whether they want to let her in or not. She lets herself smile, thinking that once she finds Barry and scolds him for blowing her off, she’s not going to give it back just yet, not when she can use it to gain access into the place and further her current investigation. It’s only as she’s allowing herself to contemplate the possibilities and logistics of it all that she spots the blood.

She slips the lanyard around her neck, lest she forget it, and picks the shirt off the ground with trembling fingers. The blood is definitely dry, and it looks old. Forgotten, like the shirt had just been cast aside and Barry hadn’t bothered to wash it. Now that she thinks of it, she hasn’t seen him wear this particular shirt in a while—and that’s enough to raise concern, considering Barry consistently wears, like, the same five shirts over and over again. This must have happened a while ago—two weeks, at least, based on the last time she can remember him wearing it—so she shouldn’t freak out. Whatever it had been, he had obviously recovered from it fine, and quickly.

Still, it’s just… there’s so much of it, so much of that dried blood, that it looks like it must have been a pretty serious injury. How was it possible that nobody had noticed anything? She starts to panic, wondering what kind of trouble he’d gotten himself into, and if it has anything to do with why he’s so mysteriously missing tonight.

She takes the shirt and shoves it into her purse, with the intention of getting some sort of explanation from Barry once she finds him. Of course, she actually has to find him first, and she’s really trying not to panic about where he might be. She nearly sprints out of the apartment building and to her car, heart pounding in her chest, praying that he’s safe and sound working on some stupid experiment with Caitlin and Cisco.

The entire ride over to S.T.A.R. Labs, her hands are shaking so badly she’s having trouble gripping the steering wheel properly. Combined with the fact that she’s going at least 40 miles above the speed limit, it’s a miracle she doesn’t get into an accident.

Her mouth is dry, and there’s a tangy, metallic taste on her tongue that won’t seem to go away despite the five mints she’s stuffed into her mouth to try to get rid of it. This isn’t the first time this has happened. This is just like the night of the particle accelerator explosion, before she’d even known about what had happened to Barry. This unexplainable sense that something is wrong, wrong, _wrong_. It doesn’t do anything to calm her nerves.

Somehow, she makes it the lab in one piece. Once she makes it through the main door, she realizes she doesn’t really have any idea where to go. S.T.A.R. Labs is a pretty big place, with a pretty confusing layout, and Barry—because she’s already convinced herself that this is where he must be, that he’s not in some sort of danger, no, of course not, he can’t be—could be anywhere. She remembers how to get to the area where they kept Barry while he was in his coma, of course, because she came to visit him nearly every other day in those nine months, and decides that it’s a start. It’s where she’ll check first.

There is, of course, the slight problem that when she gets there the heavy metal doors that had been open during all the times she had come here before are now sealed shut, and don’t exactly look inviting. In fact, they look exactly like the kind of doors someone would use if they were trying to hide something, or were determined to keep people out. She files this information away for later, and remembers Barry's lanyard around her neck.

It definitely comes in handy, considering the door refuses to open for her until she uses the little ID to grant her access, pressing it against a little scanner on the wall. She breathes a sigh of relief when it actually works, when the metal doors slide open before her, and wastes no time barging right in.

And there’s Caitlin and Cisco, staring at her from we’re their sitting behind a row of computers, frozen like deer caught in headlights. She lets her gaze sweep the room as she approaches them, not giving a fuck that she seems to be intruding on something—because it’s obvious that they’re hiding something from her, and she’s had enough of it. Her search comes up empty. No Barry.

“Hey, Caitlin. Cisco. Would you by any chance happen to know where Barry is? He’s not answering any of my calls or texts, he’s not in his apartment, and he was supposed to meet me over an hour ago. I’m starting to get worried. I didn’t know where else to go.”

Caitlin chews her lip, avoiding Iris’s gaze, and Cisco opens and closes his mouth, struggling to find the right thing to say, before he blurts out, “How did you get in?”

Before she can even answer, his eyes fall on the lanyard around her neck, and she sees him exchange a meaningful look with Caitlin. They seem to have some sort of silent communication thing going on—not unlike the kind she’s always had with Barry—like they’re silently brainstorming some believable lie to feed to her. None of which is doing anything to improve her mood.

That’s when she spots his phone, lying on the edge of the equipment-lined desk they’re sitting behind. She knows it’s his right away, recognizes that case immediately, the one covered in physics equations she can’t be bothered to try and understand, because she got it for him for his 24th birthday. So he is here, after all.

“Listen, you two better not lie to me,” she threatens, voice firm, and she sees the shock register on their faces. They’ve never seen her angry before—if they think this is bad, they really don’t know who they’re dealing with. “I know Barry is here. I _know_ that’s his phone. So where is he? And why is he avoiding me?”

She taps her foot impatiently, watching the conflicting emotions that flit across Caitlin’s face, and just as she opens her mouth to give Iris an answer, there’s a booming sound that comes through the speakers on the computer—one that’s so loud it seems to make the walls and cieling shake and leaves a ringing in Iris’s ears. And then, static. Nothing.

Cisco and Caitlin exchange a panicked look, and then glance at Iris, who’s feeling scared and confused and preparing to ask what the hell is going on once she can actually find her voice again. Caitlin shakes her head frantically but Cisco gives her a look, and she lets out shaky sigh in defeat. She bends over the desk to speak into something, runs a trembling hand through her hair as she talks to someone who’s obviously not there.

“Hey, what was that, Ba—I mean, what was that? Are you still there? Are you okay? Please answer, please, we need to know that you’re okay,” she says, fighting to keep the fear out of her voice, and Iris notes the distinct lack of a name, the obvious fact that Caitlin is still hiding something.

“What’re you…Who are you talking to? Cisco, who is she talking to?” Iris asks with steadily increasing panic.

Cisco just looks at her sadly and holds his hands up as a gesture of peace, trying his best to placate her.

“Iris, listen…” he starts, but then there’s slight distraction in the form of a familiar blur of red and a flash of yellow light.

Her first instinct is to jump into reporter mode: The Flash is here, and he must be in cahoots with S.T.A.R. Labs, and this is going to be a great angle for her article, and—and he’s hurt. Really, really badly hurt. His suit is ripped and torn and a much darker red in patches than she remembers it being, either from blood or something else, she can’t tell, his right leg and arm are bent at odd angles, and he’s leaning heavily against the wall like he can barely support himself.

She lets her gaze travel from his battered body to his head, which, even though his cowl is down, is bent over so that she can’t see his face. She can’t help but feel a thrill of excitement at the possibility of finding out the identity of the mysterious superhero, but it’s mingled in with an even greater, overwhelming sense of dread, and in the end worry outweighs anticipation. Especially because she doesn’t know anyone quite so lanky or who uses that much hair gel, no one except…fuck. No, no, no, no, that can’t be right. It can’t be Barry. It _can’t_.

Can it?

With what looks like enormous effort, The Flash lifts his head up, panting, and she knows he must be expecting to see Caitlin and Cisco, not her, standing there before him. She almost doesn’t recognize him right away—his face is so caked with blood that it’s obscuring his features, and his left eye is practically swollen shut. But then his gaze meets hers, and there’s not a doubt left in her mind. Even glazed and unfocused and filled with more pain than she’s ever seen in them before, Iris knows those eyes. She knows it’s him.

She watches as a flicker of recognition passes over his face, and he tries to peel himself from the wall to move toward her, but he only manages to make it a few steps before he stumbles and falls hard on his knees, letting out a cry of pain that sends chills down Iris’s spine. This can’t be happening. Not again.

Iris starts to move toward him on legs that feel like lead, dully aware of Caitlin’s heels clicking behind her as she and Cisco rush Barry’s side.

“Iris?” is all he says, his eyes falling shut, his voice small and broken, before he passes out.

The rest of it, she can only remember in fragments.

She follows Cisco as though in a daze as he carries Barry into a room stocked with medical equipment and lays him down on a hospital bed. Cisco must feel her presence in the room, and turns to face her.

“Iris, I’m sorry, but you can’t be in here right now,” he tells her reluctantly, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder and attempting to steer her away from Caitlin, who’s already fast at work examining Barry.

“Like hell I can’t,” Iris snaps at him, roughly throwing his hand off her shoulder. He swallows uncomfortably, eyes darting between her and Barry’s unconscious form. He seems to shrink under the glare she’s giving him, and in the end he sighs, coming to conclusion that arguing with her isn’t going to get him anywhere. He gives her a small, apologetic nod and throws another glance towards Barry, his face going pale at the sight of his friend looking so hurt and broken.

After a few moments of tense, terrified, silence, of Caitlin flitting around and Cisco frozen beside her, Iris decides to shelf her pride for just a moment, tearing her eyes away from Barry to direct her attention to Cisco, to ask the question she can’t hold in any longer, one that’s tearing her apart and filling her heart with dread.

“Cisco, how bad is it? Is he going to be okay?”

Cisco just shakes his head, like he wants to reassure her, but he can’t bring himself to lie. Which is really fucking rich, all things considered, but she can’t deal with any more dishonesty right now, so she’ll take it for what it’s worth.

“I—I don’t know. He’s been through some pretty bad stuff, and Caitlin’s always managed to patch him back up, but this…I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this bad before. So I don’t know. I just…I really hope so.”

All Iris can do is nod, as if she hadn’t already expected this information, as if she doesn’t feel like she’s about to explode.

She watches as Caitlin wipes her eyes on her sleeves as she works on stabilizing her patient, at the erratic rise and fall of her chest, at the fact that she’s very obviously crying. And Cisco isn’t faring much better, now sitting with his back against the wall, watching everything with his hands over his mouth, looking miserable. She watches them as though from far away, like she’s stuck in a dream—a nightmare.

It’s strange to see them like this, so upset and so distressed solely because of Barry being so hurt, lying unconscious in that bed, the same one he’d laid in for nine months not long ago. Neither of them had shed a tear then—they had handled him with the sort of indifference and aloofness that comes with being total strangers. Clearly, taking in the scene before her, whatever they’ve been through in the months since Barry had woken up, they’re not strangers anymore. They obviously care about him a whole damn lot, too. It should endear them to her, it should be some small source of comfort, it should make her feel closer to them. It doesn’t.

Instead, she just feels angry. Angry and numb and completely and utterly terrified. It’s a strange combination. But Caitlin’s panic is doing nothing to make her feel better, and this is supposed to be her job, she’s supposed to be focused, she’s supposed to bring him back, she’s supposed to be calm and cool and collected as always and even though Iris knows it wouldn’t be fair and she knows it’s just her own fear and anger talking, _God,_ she just wants to scream at her. To tell Caitlin to pull herself together, that they can’t all be falling apart. She needs to focus. She needs to make sure Barry survives.

Iris doesn’t know how long they go on like that—Cisco with his head in his hands, breathing hard, and Caitlin monitoring Barry’s vitals, whimpering each time she uncovers some new injury, and fighting to keep him alive, Iris just…standing there, frozen. Confused. Hurt. Terrified. She feels like someone’s got their hand around her heart and is squeezing it tight, threatening to crush it. Like she can’t breathe.

And even through all the worry, even through all the horror at seeing Barry like this, there’s still little voice in her head that won’t be quiet, the one that’s whispering that she’s not important, that he didn’t trust her enough to tell her about this, that he must not really care. She can’t even cry—it’s like she’s so much in shock, like her body is so overwhelmed with this onslaught of wildly varying feelings, that it doesn’t know what to do with her. So she just stands there.

For a long time, things aren’t looking good. Barry keeps slipping away, and Iris watches each time as Caitlin brings him back, holding her breath, each time trying and failing to prepare herself for the moment when she won’t be able to. And every time the monitor flat lines, every time she hears Caitlin’s frantic pleas of _‘Barry, stay with us,’_ it’s like she’s brought right back to that night. The night of the particle accelerator explosion. She usually does her best not to think about it, but now the memories won’t go away, and the flashbacks threaten to send her over the edge.

She doesn’t even realize she’s shaking and that her vision is starting to go all dark and blurry, that she’s on the brink of having a panic attack just like she the ones she had when Barry was still in his coma, until Cisco’s right there in front of her, holding her arms steady and trying to calm her down.

“Iris! Iris, it’s okay. He’s going to be okay. Caitlin’s got him steady—now he just needs to heal. And don’t worry, he heals really fast.”

She squeezes her eyes shut and sucks air back into her lungs, trying to dispel the feeling that she’s still drowning, and takes deep breaths to calm herself down as Cisco rubs her back soothingly. When she opens her eyes again, her vision is clear again, and she can see Caitlin bracing Barry’s arm, his leg, his fingers, cleaning his wounds and applying bandages where he needs them—which is almost everywhere. Iris chokes back a sob. He certainly doesn’t _look_ okay.

She hadn’t even noticed when Caitlin had removed his suit, everything had been such a blur, but his skin is littered with bruises and cuts, and he’s still pretty much covered in blood, and _oh God_ , there’s so much of it. It takes everything in her not to pass out right then and there.

By the time Caitlin gets to his face, Iris finally finds her voice again.

“Wait, Caitlin,” she says, her voice hoarse, and Caitlin stills just as she’s preparing to wipe the blood off of Barry’s face. “I’ll do that.”

Caitlin hesitates, but then she takes one look at Iris’s expression and nods in understanding, handing the washcloth to her as Iris makes her way over to Barry’s bedside. Her hands shake as she wipes the blood from his forehead, his cheeks, his nose, around his eyes, and so on, slowly revealing the face she knows better than any other. And that’s when it really hits home.

She wishes Caitlin and Cisco would look away, because she’s really close to losing it again, and she hates breaking down in front of other people. So she focuses all her energy on not giving into the misery that’s howling inside her, and instead on putting all the care and gentleness she can muster into her touch as she puts the washcloth to Barry’s face.

As soon as Iris is done, Caitlin gets to work on applying the last of the bandages, and tells her that all they can do now is wait. She tells her that Barry might be out for a while, suggests that she goes home and gets some rest, but Iris refuses to leave his side. If he really heals as quickly as they say, she wants to see it. She’s not going to leave until she personally watches every single little cut, every bruise, no matter how minor, fade from his skin. Not until she’s absolutely sure he’ll be okay.

So she stays. And she waits. And waits, and waits, and waits. Willing herself to keep her eyes open, absentmindedly tracing the bruises she finds on the small portions of Barry’s exposed skin that aren’t covered in bandages. And as time passes, as she watches his skin go from red to purple-and-blue to familiarly pale again, the worry in her chest finally starts to loosen.

Almost immediately, it’s replaced by anger, a burning indignation that’s gradually increasing with each passing second. Anger at him for not telling her something this huge. Anger at Caitlin and Cisco for helping him keep it from her. Anger at herself for not figuring it out sooner, when looking back, a lot of things make a whole lot more sense now. And then she overhears Cisco on the phone with her dad, talking about the explosion that must have caused this, and she finds out that he knows, that he’s known all along, and then there’s anger at him, too, so much of it she wants to scream and throw things and demand to know _why_.

After what feels like forever, without ever really taking her eyes off of him, she watches as Barry’s eyelids flutter open, as he groans in pain just by virtue of waking up. He definitely looks much better than he did earlier, but she can tell he’s still in a world of pain.

It takes a few seconds for the world to stop spinning, and of course the first thing he sees, the first thing that comes in to focus, is her.

“Iris…” he starts, his voice thick with pain and strained with exhaustion. She knows that he’s about to apologize, she can see it written plainly in his eyes, and suddenly decides that she doesn’t want to hear it. Not yet. There’s something she needs to do first.

Because yeah, she’s seething with anger, and disappointment, and hurt, and a vicious little part of her wants to shake him, to break him even more, to demand an explanation. But what she feels more than anything, more than all her anger and broken trust combined, is relief. So she leans over him from her spot at the side of his bed, careful not to put any pressure on his body or disturb his injuries.

“Iris…” he tries again, but she just shakes her head, whispers _‘shut up’_ with her face inches from his, and kisses him.

It’s amazing how soft and gentle it is, especially considering her anger, but in this moment that’s just background noise. In this moment this is all that matters, that he’s alive, that he’s okay, that she loves him. And this is where she’s meant to be.

She doesn’t want it to end, doesn’t want to be torn away from this blissful dream and back to reality, but then she hears the beeping from the heart monitor speed up and pulls away in concern. She realizes a second too late that it must have been because of her, but the happy illusion she’s created has already shattered, and the anger and hurt are already creeping back in. He stares at her, dazed, completely taken off guard.

“Iris…what…?”

She cuts him off with a look. And fuck, she doesn’t want to be mad. She really doesn’t. It would make her life so much easier if she didn’t have to be. She doesn’t want to have to call him out, not now. But how can she not?

“Why?” she demands, voice hard, and she can tell that the abrupt change in her demeanor is throwing him off even more, and clearly messing with his head. She doesn’t care. Isn’t that what he’s been doing these past few months? Playing with her emotions? At least she’s not fucking lying to him.

He doesn’t have to ask her to elaborate. He knows exactly what she’s asking.

“Iris, I am so, so sorry. I swear, I wanted to tell you. I really did. At first, at least. And then we started dealing with some really dangerous people, Iris, and I couldn’t…I wanted you to be safe. I thought that maybe, if I could keep this part of myself separate, if you didn’t know, I wouldn’t be putting you in danger. I think that logically I knew that was bullshit, that you were going to find out eventually no matter what, but I just…I got into this habit, you know?”

“Of lying to me?” Iris snaps, unconvinced, trying to keep her voice from breaking. “When you told me you loved me you said that you couldn’t lie to me anymore. But that was just another fucking lie, wasn’t it? Because you’ve been lying to me this whole time. How can you claim to love me and then sit there and lie right to my face, over and over and over again? Did you not trust me? Did you not want me to be a part of this? Is that why?”

He looks like she’s slapped him, and when he responds his voice is shaky, like he’s about to cry.

“Of course not, Iris. I mean, yes, I lied to you, and I’m so fucking sorry, but of course it wasn’t because I didn’t trust you. I trust you more than anyone. It’s just…I don’t know. I don’t have a good excuse, there _is_ no good excuse for what I’ve kept from you, and I know that, and I’m sorry. Just…it really was to protect you. Or at least that’s what I told myself. Please, you have to believe me.”

“I don’t have to do anything for you,” she says bitterly, and she can’t stop herself from checking him over once more to make sure he’s okay one last time before standing up to leave. “And how can you ever except me to believe you anymore? You could have died, and I wouldn't have even known how, or why, and you were prepared to just leave me behind like that.”

He lets his head fall back on the hospital bed, looking ashamed, and Iris can’t stand the fact that even now, even after everything he’s done, there’s still a little part of her that feels bad for hurting him, for kicking him when he’s down.

“Feel better,” she mutters under her breath as she turns her back on him, and it takes everything in her not to turn back around at the sound of his voice, when he calls out after her, begging her to wait, to listen.

She gives Caitlin and Cisco a terse nod, bids them goodbye with a clipped _‘take care of him’_ , and makes her way towards the door.

And then her dad comes rushing in just as she’s about to leave, wide-eyed and concerned. He tries to say something to her, to ask her something, but she ignores him. She doesn’t even look at him on her way out—doesn’t look back at any of them. It’s not her job to fix this mess, to forgive them that easily. That’s something they’re going to have to earn.

 

When she gets home, she heads straight for her room, shuts the door tight, and lets the bitterness swallow her whole. She kicks her dresser, she nearly breaks her mirror, she screams into her pillow. At this point, it’s well into early Monday morning, and she realizes with numb acceptance that she’s in no fit state to go to anywhere today.

She means to take her phone out of her purse, to call in sick to work, but her fingers brush against fabric and she freezes in place, knowing exactly what it must be before she sees it. She slowly extracts the bloody shirt from her bag, the one that she’d found earlier in Barry’s apartment, and stares at it for a few long seconds. She guesses she has her explanation now, at least. 

She balls the shirt into her fist and then tosses it aside, disgusted, the blood making her queasy. So this is Barry’s life now. The life he hadn’t bothered to share with her. And he’s always going to be in danger. He’s always going to be getting hurt like this. She lets out a shaky sigh and crosses the room, picking the shirt back up off the ground with trembling fingers, carrying it over to her bed and sitting down hard. It’s not until she’s burying her face in it, using it to muffle her sobs, that she really allows herself to cry.

 

He gives her space. She’s simultaneously grateful and furious. She wants him on his knees, begging for her forgiveness, showing her that he really meant what he said, that he really did care, that it wasn’t because he didn’t trust her. That he’s genuinely sorry. She deserves that, at least.

But then again, she knows that right now, if he were to do anything like that, it would probably only exacerbate her anger. Seeing him, no doubt, would only increase her lingering desire to throw things. She knows that she needs the space—she just doesn’t have to like it. 

She spends the better half of two weeks trying to convince herself that she hates him, that she's never going to forgive him, that she doesn't ever want to see him again. In the end, she's forced to face the fact that she's just not as convincing a liar as Barry. She does, however, hate _herself_ for missing him. Even at that, not nearly as much as she hates herself for still loving him.

And then after about week three of space, of not talking, of her ignoring him whenever he’s around, he starts sending texts. Checking in on her. Apologizing. Explaining. Trying to make things right. She reads them all, but she’s not ready to talk yet.

After week four comes the voicemails, and the increasing desperation in his voice shouldn’t make her feel better, it really shouldn’t, but it does. Good. Let him be upset.

After week five she starts responding again.

After week six she starts to wonder if maybe, just maybe, they can make things right again after all. If maybe she can find it in her heart to forgive him.

And then it’s week seven, day one—and yes, she’s still keeping count—and she’s just settled down on the couch, flipping through the channels, when she hears a knock on the door. Somehow she doesn’t have to look through the peephole to know who it is, almost like she expected him, and she’s grateful that he at least had the good sense to knock even though he’s got a key and could very easily have let himself in. She cracks the door open, just enough so that she can peek her face out.

“What do you want?” she asks, and for the first time in a long time there’s no real anger behind her tone, no bitterness and no hostility lurking beneath the surface. Right now, she just sounds as tired as she feels. Because she’s so tired of being angry all the time. At him, at her dad, at Caitlin and Cisco, at everyone in her life who lied to her—even herself. Tired, tired, tired.

He looks so sad and so nervous, standing there on her doorstep, and he shuffles his feet uncomfortably under her gaze. It’s been a while since she’s seen him this close, and he definitely doesn’t seem to be faring any better than she is if the heavy bags underneath his eyes are anything to go by. She notices a cut on his cheek, and resists the urge to reach out and touch it, wondering what he’s gotten himself into this time.

“I thought…I thought maybe…Well, it’s movie night, and I’m sorry, and I really miss you.” He must see the question in her eyes, the _‘Why now?’_ , because he doesn’t stop there.

“I know that we haven’t seen each other in a while, but I thought I could stay away, keep my distance—that you’d be safer without me in your life. I guess I’m a little selfish, though, because I know that you’re still furious with me, and I know that you have every right to be, and I know that you’d be better off without me, but…I really, really still want you to be a part of mine. So…I brought popcorn, and a movie, and I was wondering if maybe we could…maybe we could start over?”

She glances at the movie in his hand, and has to bite back a laugh at what she sees.

“You hate _Inception_ ,” she points out, averting his question, and all the unspoken little things behind it. "You can barely sit through three seconds of it without pointing out every little plot hole and scientific inaccuracy." She almost smiles at the memory. She misses that. She misses _him_.

“Well, yeah, but you don’t,” he answers simply, shrugging, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

He’s right, of course. It’s always been her favorite; it’s what she watches whenever she needs escape reality for a little while, and God knows she could use that right now. She feels a burning in her throat and a prickling in her eyes, and she turns up her face, swallowing hard and willing it to stop. She’s not going to cry. She refuses to. Crying is Barry’s thing—she doesn’t crack that easily.

But then he gives her a tentative smile, and she can see that his eyes are wet, too, and she knows she’s lost this battle. If she’s being honest with herself, she’s known she would lose it from the very start. That she never stood a chance at not loving him. She opens up the door and steps to the side, turning her face away so he won’t see her tears.

And she lets him back in.

**Author's Note:**

> hit me up @ bisexualiriswest.tumblr.com if you want to cry about these two losers with me


End file.
